The Terrorist State of Syria.
Israel cannot be reconciled with the Mafia regime of Assad. Syria will wait till the moment that it sees chances of defeating Israel. Syria cannot efford good relations with Israel.
The Assad family has established a hereditary dynasty shored up by repression within, and confrontation and terror abroad. The rule of the Assads is not aimed at improving the lot of their people or forwarding a particular ideology. They changed ideology from secular Arabism to a seemingly impossible confection of pan-Arabism and Islamist extremism because it was expedient to do so. Hafez Assad came to power following a dizzying succession of coups that had made Syria the most unstable regime in the Middle East. The Assads are seated atop a bucking bronco. They are members of the Allawi religious minority who are usually not even considered to be Muslims. They rule a country of disparate minorities with a potential for chaos almost as great as that of Iraq. The radical Muslim Brotherhood is always there, threatening to take over the country by fair means or foul, and the usual Ba'th party rivalries that have plagued all such regimes are also a threat to Assad family rule.
Their rule is not about improving living standards for Syria. Syrian living standards have fallen behind the none-too-glamorous ones of Jordan or Egypt. It is not about democracy, a Western luxury Syria can't afford, according to Bashar Assad. The Assad regime is about stability, and it is about money and power for the Assad family. The regime is comparable in every way to the fictional Corleone Mafia family.
Prosperity and peace would ruin the Assad regime. Therefore, Western assumptions that Syrian leadership must want peace and prosperity are mistaken, and it is pointless to "engage" Syria in dialogue except insofar as it is possible to confront them with their violations and insist that they mend their ways as explained at :
http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/12/truth-about-syria.html
A Murder Mystery in Syria
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What happens when a cloak-and-dagger general is shot dead in an Arab country where the regime is secretive and the press regularly gagged? It ignites a blogosphere bonanza. The assassination early this month of Syria's Mohammed Suleiman got limited coverage in the printed press, but it spawned streams of commentary on Web sites devoted to the Middle East and to military matters. Suleiman, who was killed while vacationing at a resort on the Mediterranean coast, was a close confidant of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Nicknamed "the imported general" for his pale complexion and foreign looks, Suleiman had been linked to some of Syria's most criticized policies and programs, including its dealings with North Korea and Iran, an alleged nuclear facility that Israel bombed last year, and its support for Lebanon's militant Hizbullah group. He'd been a key aide to Assad since the mid-1990s. Among the more intriguing whodunit theories circulating: Iran whacked him to avenge the death earlier this year of master bomber Imad Mughnieh, or Assad ordered him killed because Suleiman knew too much about the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
In Washington, three current and former officials familiar with the Middle East told NEWSWEEK that Israel's Mossad has to be near the top of any shortlist of suspects. All refused to be identified discussing sensitive matters.
Israel has long complained that Syria funnels Iranian arms to Hizbullah and gives the group rockets from its own arsenal. (Both Syria and Iran say their ties to Hizbullah are their own business.) An Israeli diplomatic source told NEWSWEEK last week that Suleiman was Syria's main liaison to the group and had helped Hizbullah triple its arsenal of rockets and missiles in the past two years. But a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, asked about Suleiman's assassination, said Israel had "no direct knowledge and no comment on this matter."
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